Beatles Unit 3
Sand and Foam by Kahlil Gibran
"Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you." "When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind."
—Erin Torkelson , The Beatles and the Historians: An Analysis of Writings About the Fab Four
"In the interest of constructing their own mythology as a couple, the two provided false accounts of the date of their first meeting as well as their first sexual encounter and obscured the truth of numerous other issues. Both also denied the claim that Ono pursued Lennon persistently for over a year prior to their public relationship despite numerous eyewitness accounts to the contrary. (McCartney, Cynthia Lennon and Beatles insiders Shotton, Peter Brown and Bramwell all recount Ono's pursuit of Lennon."
"Jet," by Wings from 1976.
"Jet," by Wings from 1976.
What were the Rolling Stones up to in 1968?
26 July 1968: Decca Records withdraws from scheduled release the Rolling Stones' new LP, Beggars Banquet, objecting to its cover art which is a photo of a graffiti-covered toilet.
Beggars Banquet
28th December 1968: Beggars Banquet is finally released, with a plain white cover resembling an invitation. The LP's stripped down musical production (with little overdubbing) and the cover art's simplicity are both reminiscent of the Beatles' "White Album."
The single "Street Fighting Man"
5 October 1968: The single "Street Fighting Man" is released. Reportedly, some U. S. radio stations will not play it, fearing it will incite violence. Compare Jagger's views on revolution with Lennon's.
The Beatles continued to squabble about their finances and the role of Allen Klein.
Although Starr and Harrison had briefly quit the band [during the White Album and Get Back/Let it Be sessions, respectively] and Lennon had said he was breaking up the band, it wasn't until April 1970 (just before the release of his first solo album) when Paul McCartney made a public statement about moving on professionally that the Beatles finally disbanded.
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
Although much of the song's lyrics are surrealist nonsense or references to heroin use, Manson believed the chorus was meant to encourage black people to arm themselves against whites.
In 2015,
Apple released newly-restored videos of the Beatles, both performances and music videos that they had created.
At the end of Strawberry Fields Forever, Lennon can be heard muttering "cranberry sauce". This was misheard as "I buried Paul".
At the end of I'm So Tired, John Lennon mutters "Monsieur, monsieur, monsieur, how about another one?" When played backwards, this was interpreted by some as "Paul is dead, man, miss him, miss him".
Cult leader Charles Manson was obsessed with finding hidden messages in the Beatles' recordings.
Here is a brief medley of songs from The White Album that he thought contained such messages.
The Plastic Ono band performing "
Blue Suede Shoes" (sung by Elvis Presley; written by early Beatles influence Carl Perkins) in Toronto, 1969
Yoko Ono's wailing may sound weird,
But check out the ending of Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" (pre-Elvis Presley):
Harrison, McCartney, and Lennon all played guitar.
Who played this virtuosic classical-style guitar intro to "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill"?
In particular, McCartney took exception to Phil Spector's additions to The Long And Winding Road, which turned a simple piano ballad into a soaring orchestral epic.
"The album was finished a year ago, but a few months ago American record producer Phil Spector was called in by John Lennon to tidy up some of the tracks. But a few weeks ago, I was sent a re-mixed version of my song 'The Long And Winding Road', with harps, horns, an orchestra and women's choir added. No one had asked me what I thought. I couldn't believe it. I would never have female voices on a Beatles record. The record came with a note from Allen Klein {more on him soon] saying he thought the changes were necessary. I don't blame Phil Spector for doing it but it just goes to show that it's no good me sitting here thinking I'm in control because obviously I'm not. Anyway I've sent Klein a letter asking for some of the things to be altered, but I haven't received an answer yet." -Paul
In 1968, Paul McCartney described the inspiration for the song "Helter Skelter":
"Umm, that came about just 'cause I'd read a review of a record [the Who's "I Can See For Miles"] which said, 'and this group really got us wild, there's echo on everything, they're screaming their heads off.' And I just remember thinking, 'Oh, it'd be great to do one. Pity they've done it. Must be great — really screaming record.' And then I heard their record and it was quite straight, and it was very sort of sophisticated. It wasn't rough and screaming and tape echo at all. So I thought, 'Oh well, we'll do one like that, then.' And I had this song called "Helter Skelter," which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, 'cuz I like noise." Like, Helter Skelter is a nightclub. Helter Skelter means confusion. Literally. It doesn't mean any war with anyone. It doesn't mean that those people are going to kill other people. It only means what it means. Helter Skelter is confusion. Confusion is coming down fast. If you don't see the confusion coming down fast, you can call it what you wish. It's not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says 'Rise!' It says 'Kill!' Why blame it on me? I didn't write the music. I am not the person who projected it into your social consciousness. In fact, Helter Skelter was/is a slide at an English carnival or amusement park. Take 2, slower, with vocal echo influenced by 1950s Rockabilly:
(This predicted the coming Heavy Metal rock style.)
"When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide, Where I stop and I turn and then I go for a ride, 'Till I get to the bottom and I see you again."
John Lennon singing "Hound Dog"
(a hit when sung by Elvis Presley) at Madison square Garden in 1972
Walt Everett, The Beatles As Musicians (part 2)
. . . a whole raft of new equipment was supplied by Fender and adopted. Making their first appearances on the White Album are Fender telecasters for both Harrison and Lennon . . . And two Fender twin reverb amplifiers . . . "The album has been called a history of rock and roll, because of the wide variety of styles represented and parodied."
Also there was the British singer Donovan (who taught them how to play fingerpicked guitar),
Beach Boys member Mike Love, actress Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence. By this photo, Ringo Starr and his wife had left in part because the food didn't suit him.
got the word that this amazing woman was putting on a show the next week, something about people in bags, in black bags, and it was going to be a bit of a happening and all that. So I went to a preview the night before it opened.
But it was another piece that really decided me for or against the artist: a ladder that led to a painting, which was hung on the ceiling. It looked like a white canvas with a chain with a spyglass hanging on the end of it. I climbed the ladder, looked through the spyglass, and in tiny little letters it said, YES. So it was positive. I felt relieved. It's a great relief when you get up the ladder and you look through the spyglass and it doesn't say NO or FriCK YOU or something.
"Here Comes The Sun"
Dhani Harrison, George and Giles Martin discuss a "lost" George Harrison guitar solo that was recorded but was not included in the final mix. Listen for the 123 123 123 123 1234 beat pattern that Dhani compares to an Indian rhythmic cycle.
He [John Lennon] was shot by Mark David Chapman in the archway of the building where he lived, The
Dakota, in New York City on Monday, 8 December 1980. Lennon had just returned from Record Plant Studio with his wife, Yoko Ono. Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at Roosevelt Hospital. He was 40 years old. At the hospital, it was stated that nobody could have lived for more than a few minutes after sustaining such injuries. Shortly after local news stations reported Lennon's death, crowds gathered at Roosevelt Hospital and in front of the Dakota. Lennon was cremated on 10 December 1980 at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York; the ashes were given to Ono, who chose not to hold a funeral for him.
All four Beatles met on this day [15 January 1969] to discuss their future, following George Harrison's sudden departure on 10 January.
Harrison was in a commanding position, following a series of dismal sessions at Twickenham Film Studios, and was able to set down his terms for returning to the group. During the five-hour meeting he made it clear that he would leave the group unless the idea of a live show before an audience was dropped. Harrison also demanded that sessions be moved from Twickenham to the new studio in the basement of Apple's headquarters in Savile Row, London. He did, however, agree to be filmed making an album, and his new rules didn't rule out a live performance for the cameras. But there was a major problem with the new studio in the basement of the Apple building. The Beatles had entrusted the design and construction of the studio to John Lennon's friend Alexis Mardas, known as "Magic Alex." This was the same person who vaguely accused the Maharishi of sexually coming on to one of the female members of the group of celebrities in Rishikesh, India. (Paul McCartney: "It was Magic Alex who made the original accusation and I think that it was completely untrue." — http://www.beatlesbible.com/people/alexis-mardas/)
There are many Beatles tribute bands, some better (less cheesy?) than others.
Here is RAIN, doing their Sgt. Pepper album ending:
Perhaps more rewarding is when groups try to recreate Beatles songs without trying to look like the Beatles.
Here is the group Cheap Trick doing the last three songs of the ending medley from Abbey Road. Note that a string section, a horn section, an extra guitarist, and guest vocalists are required to approximate the original recording.
What were the Rolling Stones up to in 1967?
In February, Jagger and Richards were arrested for drug possession. In August, they issued a single and video for the song "We Love You." Is there any precedent among the Beatles' recent recordings?
The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles
It aired on 9 February 2014, 50 years to the day after the Beatles first played on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
[3 February 1969] The Beatles, Allen Klein and John Eastman held a meeting at the Apple HQ, 3 Savile Row, London, in which Klein was formally appointed The Beatles' business manager.
Klein was formally appointed The Beatles' business manager. Klein's immediate task was to closely examine the group's finances, and to find a way to stop Brian Epstein's former company NEMS, now run by his brother Clive, from taking a quarter of their earnings. The decision to appoint Klein was seen as a fait accompli by Paul McCartney, who had wanted his future father-in-law John Eastman to represent the group. He was, however, outvoted 3-1 by the other Beatles.
One of his [Mardas's] tasks was to design The Beatles' new recording studio, to be installed in the basement of the Apple HQ in Savile Row, London.
Legend has it that Mardas claimed to be working on a system of replacing the 'baffles' which isolated each instrument with a sonic force field, which inevitably never came to fruition. [. . .] Mardas announced plans to build the world's first 72-track facilities, but when the group needed to begin the Get Back project in January 1969 they discovered it was unfinished, with no soundproofing, talkback system or tape machine. All that had been installed was a badly designed mixing console built by Mardas, which was scrapped after a single session. Additionally, the studio was unconnected to the control room, so any sound recording could not reach the mixing desk. The studio was later described by George Harrison as "the biggest disaster of all time". [. . .
In "Glass Onion,
Lennon consciously (but playfully) responds to overzealous fans who obsessively parsed the Beatles' lyrics. He does that in part by referring to earlier Beatles songs and explaining what the puzzling lines really meant (except he was making it up). What earlier songs does he refer to, and what does he say about them? The process is like peeling away the layers of a Glass Onion! Relate this to the article "The Postmodern White Album."
Also in February, the Beatles recorded John Lennon's "Across the Universe," one of his favorite compositions (although maligned by Ian MacDonald as a "plaintively babyish incantation"!).
Lennon resented that McCartney brought in two Beatles groupies from the Abbey Road entrance to sing backup vocals on the song. He felt McCartney wasn't taking the song seriously. Lennon eventually gave up trying to ready it for release on a single, and instead gave a mix of it to the World Wildlife Fund to use on a fundraising album.
Piggies
Manson believed that Piggies was a reference to the establishment. "Clutching forks and knives" would have devastating consequences for the Family's victims - Leno LaBianca was left with a knife in his throat and a fork in his stomach. "Death to Pigs" was written in LaBianca's blood on a wall in his home, and "Damn good whacking" was a phrase particularly liked by Manson.
Blackbird
Manson saw the lines "All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise" as The Beatles encouraging black people to rise up against the white establishment.
Revolution 9
Manson's theory of Helter Skelter was closely bound to a belief that Revolution 9 was an aural depiction of chapter nine in the book of Revelation in the Bible. He saw The Beatles as embodying various facets of the book. "And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit." —Revelation 9, verse 1 This was variously interpreted by Manson as being about Stuart Sutcliffe, or about Manson himself. "And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth; and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power."
Hey Jude"
McCartney wrote "Hey Jude" after visiting Cynthia and son Julian Lennon. It was meant as a kind of reassurance to Julian whose life was in turmoil due to his parents' divorce. Recorded during the White Album sessions, this is another Beatles sing-along song, like "All Together Now," All You Need Is Love," Bungalow Bill, and "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da." I don't think he's [McCartney's] as good as me, but he's certainly not incapable. "Hey Jude" is a damn good set of lyrics and I made no contribution to that. [. . .] "Hey Jude" is Paul's. It's one of his masterpieces. I don't think I had anything to do with it. He said it was written about Julian, my child. He knew I was splitting with Cyn and leaving Julian. He was driving over to say hi to Julian. He'd been like an uncle to him. You know, Paul was always good with kids. And so he came up with "Hey Jude." —John Lennon, in David Sheff, All We Are Saying Here's some rehearsal footage of "Hey Jude." Despite the group's conflicts, they look happy when they're playing.
Jamaican-born Millie Small's Ska-influenced 1963 single
My Boy Lollipop"
The people in the room didn't know whether to be shocked or to take the claim as another show of bravado on Lennon's part.
Nobody - including Ono - knew this would happen on this day. "Our jaws dropped," McCartney said. For once, McCartney and Klein were in agreement: They persuaded Lennon to hold off on any announcement for at least a couple of months. Klein had just finished a new deal that won the Beatles a substantial increase in royalty rates, and he didn't want to spook EMI with the knowledge that the band was breaking up. Plus, both Klein and McCartney believed that Lennon might reconsider; it wasn't uncommon for him to swing between extremes.
White Album a double album,
Not everyone agrees with the decision to make the White Album a double album, with two discs; Among the group's team, what were their individual opinions on the subject?
Yoko Ono means in Japanese "
Ocean Child." Half of what I say is meaningless But I say it just to reach you, Julia Julia, Julia Ocean child calls me So I sing the song of love, Julia Julia Seashell eyes, windy smile calls me So I sing the song of love Julia [. . .] When I cannot sing my heart I can only speak my mind Julia
John was going with Klein, and George and Ringo said,
Ok we're going with John.' I realised I was expected to go along with it, but I didn't think it was a good idea - simple as that, really. Actually I asked Mick Jagger when he came round, 'What do you think?' He said, 'Oh, he's all right if you like that kind of thing.' He didn't really warn us off him, so there it was - and that then was the three-to-one situation. In The Beatles, if anyone didn't agree with a plan, it was always vetoed. It was very democratic that way, so the three-to-one situation was very awkward and as a result 'things' would happen.
The Concert for Bangladesh
Or Bangla Desh, as the country name was spelt originally) was the name for two benefit concerts organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, held at 2.30 and 8 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, playing to a total of 40,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The shows were organised to raise international awareness and fund relief efforts for refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), following the 1970 Bhola cyclone and the civil war-related Bangladesh atrocities.
On 25 June 1967, the Beatles participated in what has been called the first global satellite TV broadcast,
Our World, said to be watched by 400 million people in 26 countries. For the occasion, they performed live (with some recorded backing) Lennon's song "All You Need Is Love."
Here's part of McCartney's solo album press release that signaled to some that he was quitting the group. Notice that he doesn't exactly say that.
Q: Are you planning a new album or single with the Beatles? A: No. Q: Is this album a rest away from the Beatles or the start of a solo career? A: Time will tell. Being a solo album means it's "the start of a solo career..." and not being done with the Beatles means it's just a rest. So it's both. Q: Is your break with the Beatles temporary or permanent, due to personal differences or musical ones? A: Personal differences, business differences, musical differences, but most of all because I have a better time with my family. Temporary or permanent? I don't really know. Q: Do you foresee a time when Lennon-McCartney becomes an active songwriting partnership again? A: No.
It has also been called a Postmodern album. Please read this article on Canvas and be ready to discuss its points.
Questions for discussion: What is the article's thesis? According to the author, what have been the criticisms of the White Album? How does the author propose we look at the album? How does the author define Postmodernism? What principles of Postmodernism does the author relate to the album? How does he relate those principles to which specific songs?
his eight-minute exercise in aural free association is the world's most widely distributed avant-garde artefact. Around a million households owned copies of it within days of its release and, a quarter of a century later, its hearers number in the hundreds of millions.
Reflecting on REVOLUTION 9 in an interview with Robin Blackburn and Tariq Ali in 1971, Lennon observed: 'I thought I was painting in sound a picture of revolution - but I made a mistake. The mistake was that it was anti-revolution.
The cover of Abbey Road is said to make reference to a funeral procession, with John Lennon dressed all in white as a priest;
Ringo Starr in a black suit as an undertaker; McCartney being barefoot, as many corpses would have been buried; and George Harrison following as a gravedigger. McCartney was also out of step with the others, with his eyes closed. In the same picture, McCartney is holding a cigarette with his right hand. However, it was well known that he was left-handed, suggesting that an impostor was in his place. A Volkswagen Beetle car in the background has the numberplate LMW 28IF. LMW was taken to mean 'Linda McCartney weeps', and 28IF was interpreted as referring to Paul's age if he had lived. However, at the time of Abbey Road's release in 1969 he would have been 27, rather than 28.
By the time Abbey Road was released on September 26, the Beatles' fellowship had effectively ended.
September 13, John Lennon and Yoko Ono performed at the Toronto Rock & Roll Revival, with a makeshift group that included Eric Clapton, and the experience convinced Lennon that he could no longer withstand the confines of his old band. A week later, during a meeting at Apple - with Klein, the Beatles and Ono in attendance - McCartney tried once more to persuade his bandmates to undertake a tour and return to the stage. "Let's get back to square one and remember what we're all about," he told them. Lennon responded, "I think you're daft. I wasn't going to tell you, but I'm breaking the group up. It feels good. It feels like a divorce."
The Traveling Wilburys (
Sometimes shortened to the Wilburys) were an English-American supergroup consisting of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, accompanied by drummer Jim Keltner.
He peels back "layers of riddles" in:
Strawberry Fields Forever I am The Walrus Lady Madonna Fixing A Hole The Fool On The Hill
One of the most bizarre parts of the Beatles' history was the "Paul is dead" myth that suggested that McCartney had been killed in a car crash and had been impersonated for years:
The 'Paul Is Dead' myth began in 1969, and alleged that Paul McCartney died in 1966. The Beatles are said to have covered up the death, despite inserting a series of clues into their songs and artwork. Belief that Paul McCartney may have died in the mid 1960s began in 1969. The first known print reference was in an article written by Tim Harper which appeared in the 17 September edition of the Times-Delphic, the newspaper of the Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. In an edition of Life magazine dated 7 November 1969, McCartney reassured fans that "Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated," paraphrasing Mark Twain. "However," he continued, "if I was dead, I'm sure I'd be the last to know."
2017
The 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper
Rather than rush to fill a three-month album schedule as had been necessary while touring,
The Beatles now settled into a regime of continuous low-intensity recording. This suited their more relaxed lifestyle, but it had a workaday quality about it - an intrinsic lack of tension which was bound to colour the resulting material. Since they paid no studio-fees, they needed only to find free time in the Abbey Road schedules and turn up, whether or not they had anything ready to record. Consequently many of the hours they now spent in Studio 2 were occupied not with recording or even rehearsing, but with writing songs. . . . McCartney saw the motif of a psychedelic roadshow as the basis for a film, which he accordingly roughed out on a sheet of paper while flying back to Britain. Mixing for Sgt. Pepper was still going on when he arrived, and it might have been wiser to let everyone have a couple of months' rest before pushing on with a new project, but Brian Epstein liked the idea and McCartney, as ever, was impatient to start. Thus, a mere four days after Pepper was put to bed, the jaded Beatles were back in Abbey Road, taping the title track for Magical Mystery Tour.
Lennon was asked in May 1970 at what point he thought the Beatles had broken up, and he responded,
The Beatles' White Album. Listen — all your experts listen, none of you can hear. Every track is an individual track — there isn't any Beatles music on it. I just say, listen to the White Album. It was John and the Band, Paul and the Band, George and the Band."
At Twickenham,
The Beatles, Yoko, and I, often joined by our cameraman Tony Richmond, would have a proper lunch in the small dining room up a flight of stairs . . . [. . . ] We'd finished the first course [of lunch] when George arrived to stand at the end of the table. We looked at him as he stood silent for a moment. "See you 'round the clubs," he said. That was his good-bye. He left. John, a person who reacted aggressively to provocation, immediately said, "Let's get in Eric [Clapton]. He's just as good and not such a headache."
"Come Together"
The album opener "Come Together" was a Lennon contribution. The chorus was inspired by a song Lennon originally wrote for Timothy Leary's campaign for governor of California titled "Let's Get It Together" [. . .] The song was later the subject of a lawsuit brought against Lennon by Morris Levy because the opening line in "Come Together"—"Here come old flat-top"—was admittedly lifted from a line in Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me". A settlement was reached in 1973 whereby Lennon promised to record three songs owned by Big Seven [Levy's and Berry's song publishing company] for his next album. "Come Together" was later released as a double A-side single with "Something".
Medley
The climax of the album is a 16-minute medley [actually two medleys] consisting of several short songs, both finished and unfinished, blended into a suite by McCartney and Martin. Most of the songs were written (and originally recorded in demo form) during sessions for The White Album and Get Back/Let It Be sessions "You Never Give Me Your Money" is the first song. Written by McCartney, it is based on his feelings towards Allen Klein and what McCartney viewed as Klein's empty promises. It slowly and quietly transitions into "Sun King" (which, like "Because", showcases Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison's triple-tracked harmonies), "Mean Mr. Mustard" (written during the Beatles' trip to India), and "Polythene Pam", all three contributed by Lennon. These in turn are followed by four McCartney songs, "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" (written after a fan entered McCartney's residence via his bathroom window), "Golden Slumbers" (based on lyrics from Thomas Dekker's 17th-century poem), "Carry That Weight" (reprising elements from "You Never Give Me Your Money", and featuring chorus vocals from all four Beatles), and the climax, "The End".
One of the first business ventures by The Beatles' Apple Corps was the Apple Boutique, which opened on 7 December 1967. It was located at 94 Baker Street, London.
The concept of the boutique was that absolutely everything was for sale. It was described by Paul McCartney as 'a beautiful place where beautiful people can buy beautiful things'. "Clive Epstein or some other such business freak came up to us and said, 'You got to spend so much money or the tax'll take it. We're thinking of opening a chain of retail clothes,' or some barmy thing like that. And we were all muttering about, 'Well, if we're going to have to open a shop, let's open something we're interested in.' We went through all these different ideas about this, that and the other. Paul had a nice idea about opening up white houses where it would sell white china and things like that, everything white because you can never get anything white, which is pretty groovy. It didn't end up with that, it ended up with Apple, with all this junk and The Fool and all the stupid clothes and all that."
Lennon may have started writing the song beforehand, as he later said:
The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko."
CEILING PAINTING 1966 by Yoko Ono Climb up a ladder. Look at the painting on the ceiling with a magnifying glass, and find the word 'YES'
The interactive object known as Ceiling Painting was an important work shown at Ono's historic 1966 Indica Gallery show in London. The viewer is invited to climb a white ladder, where, at the top, a magnifying glass, attached by a chain, hangs from a frame on the ceiling. The viewer uses the reading glass to discover a block letter "instruction" beneath the framed sheet of glass-it says "YES." It was through this work that Ono met her future husband and longtime collaborator, John Lennon.
Let's watch the rooftop concert, as seen in the movie Let It Be (which has never been officially issued on DVD.
The one song that was not new was a revival of their old rocker "One After 909," which the Beatles had tried recording in 1963 (even before "She Loves You") but rejected before it could be perfected. (At any rate, the words are rather trite!)
Rocky Raccoon
The only one of Manson's chosen songs to directly mention the Bible, Manson believed that Rocky Raccoon referred to 'coon', a derogatory term for a black person. "Rocky's revival" was thought to be an anticipation of an uprising by black people.
The Beatles were said to have been referred to the death a number of times in song, including the following:
The opening words of Got To Get You Into My Life: "I was alone, I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there". The line "He didn't notice that the lights had changed" from A Day in the Life. The opening line of She's Leaving Home, which highlighted the moment of the accident: "Wednesday morning at 5 o'clock as the day begins". The suppression of the story in the news found its way into Lady Madonna: "Wednesday morning papers didn't come".
"Something"
The second track on the album later became Harrison's first A-side single. Basing the first line of the song on "Something in the Way She Moves" from James Taylor's 1968 Apple Records album James Taylor, Harrison wrote "Something" during the The Beatles sessions. After the lyrics were refined during the Let It Be sessions (tapes reveal Lennon giving Harrison some songwriting advice during its composition), the song was initially given to Joe Cocker, but was subsequently recorded for Abbey Road. "Something" was Lennon's favourite song on the album, and McCartney considered it the best song Harrison had written. Frank Sinatra once commented that "Something" was his favourite Lennon-McCartney song (though the song was actually Harrison's) and "the greatest love song ever written". The song was released as a double A-side single with "Come Together". "Something" became the first Beatles number one single that was not a Lennon-McCartney composition; it was also the first single from an already released album.
"In the beginning she [Ono] showed up at the Apple business offices and demanded to see him [Lennon].
The security guards at Abbey Road EMI recording studios, where the boys recorded their albums, used to joke that she was part of the fence, and once she threatened to chain herself to the gates in an attempt to see John. Then came a long-distance assault on Kenwood [the Lennon family's home]. It began with a barrage of phone calls, and then . . . Yoko sent dozens of letters. [. . .] . . . Yoko began to appear at Kenwood in person, waiting in the driveway of the house, waiting for John to come and go. She stood there from early in the morning until late at night . . ."
The Rolling Stones' manager credited Lennon and McCartney with fixing "We Love You" when the Stones were having problems recording the track:
The two Beatles didn't listen to the "We Love You" track for much longer than they'd spent running down "I Wanna Be Your Man" to my songless Stones just two and one half years before. They picked up the cans [headphones] and sniffed each other like two dogs in heat for the right part. . . John and Paul just glided in . . . Their voices locked and smiled like brothers . . . Everybody, my gobsmacked Stones as well, straightened up as vision became reality. We'd just had a major lesson from the guv'nors as to what this recording thing was all about. In plain English, I'd just seen and heard a frickin' miracle."
In December, the Rolling Stones issued the album
Their Satanic Majesties Request.
"The Beatles' encounter with the Maharishi coincided with their realisation that LSD didn't hold the answers they were hoping for.
They held a press conference to reveal their new passion for meditation, and announced that they had given up drugs. The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein had been due to join them in Bangor after the August Bank Holiday. However, he never made it: his body was discovered at his London home on 27 August 1967. He had died of an overdose of barbiturates mixed with alcohol."
George Harrison, Anthology
We tried to record it, but John and Paul were so used to just cranking out their tunes that it was very difficult at times to get serious and record one of mine. It wasn't happening. They weren't taking it seriously and I don't think they were even all playing on it, and so I went home that night thinking, 'Well, that's a shame,' because I knew the song was pretty good. The next day I was driving into London with Eric Clapton, and I said, 'What are you doing today? Why don't you come to the studio and play on this song for me?' He said, 'Oh, no - I can't do that. Nobody's ever played on a Beatles record and the others wouldn't like it.' I said, 'Look, it's my song and I'd like you to play on it.' So he came in. I said, 'Eric's going to play on this one,' and it was good because that then made everyone act better. Paul got on the piano and played a nice intro and they all took it more seriously.
Apple would be "a controlled weirdness, a kind of Western communism
We want to help people, but without doing it like a charity. We always had to go to the big men on our knees and touch our forelocks and say, 'Please can we do so-and-so . . . ?' We're in the happy position of not needing any more money, so for the first time the bosses aren't in it for profit. If you come to me and say, 'I've had such and such a dream,' I'll say to you, 'Go away and do it.'
Get Back/Let It Be sessions
When the Get Back/Let It Be sessions finally resumed, now in the basement of the Apple headquarters, George Harrison had and interesting idea, one related to his inclusion of Eric Clapton on the White Album's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps.": "Billy Preston first met The Beatles while touring with Little Richard's band in 1962. At the time The Beatles were the opening act, and were yet to find fame beyond their home city. They met again in 1969, during the fraught sessions for the Let It Be album and film. George Harrison, unwilling to further endure the animosity within the group, had walked out of the studio and gone to a Ray Charles concert in London, where he saw Preston playing the organ.
From the 1971 Concert For Bangladesh, here are Harrison, Clapton, and an all-star band performing "
While My Guitar Gently Weeps."
A couple of weeks before we were due to leave, Magic Alex
accused the Maharishi of behaving improperly with a young American girl, who was a fellow student. Without allowing the Maharishi an opportunity to defend himself, John and George chose to believe Alex and decided we must all leave. I was upset. I had seen Alex with the girl, who was young and impressionable, and I wondered whether he - whom I had never once seen meditating - was being rather mischievous. I was surprised that John and George had both chosen to believe him. It was only when John and I talked later that he told me he had begun to feel disenchanted with the Maharishi's behavior. He felt that, for a spiritual man, the Maharishi had too much interest in public recognition, celebrities and money. Paul McCartney: "It was Magic Alex who made the original accusation and I think that it was completely untrue."
John had a song he had started to write which he was singing: 'Maharishi, what have you done?'
and I said, 'You can't say that, it's ridiculous.' I came up with the title of Sexy Sadie and John changed 'Maharishi' to 'Sexy Sadie'. John flew back to Yoko in England and I went to Madras and the south of India and spent another few weeks there.
With John's reappearance in the studio came Yoko,
back at his side, ever conspicuous as an intruder; however, this time, there was an even more offensive twist. Yoko was pregnant again, with strict orders from her doctor to remain in bed while recovering from the car crash [in Scotland]. In a characteristically aggravating gesture, she had Harrods [a department store] deliver a double bed to the studio and instructed an EMI technician to suspend a microphone above her head that would adequately furnish her comments to the band. "The three of us didn't quite get it," Paul recalled. Yoko lounged in the bed, reading or knitting, impervious to their scowls, while the Beatles pressed on, tackling a song of John's that he's composed upon returning from Scotland. ["Come Together"]
Paul McCartney
did not attend and released the statement: ''After 20 years, the Beatles still have some business differences, which I had hoped would have been settled by now. Unfortunately, they haven't been, so I would feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with them at a fake reunion.''
When Spector came around, it was like, 'Well, all right, if you want to work with us, go and do your audition, man.'
e worked like a pig on it. He'd always wanted to work with The Beatles and he was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit - and with a lousy feeling to it - ever. And he made something out of it. It wasn't fantastic, but I heard it, I didn't puke. I was so relieved after six months of this black cloud hanging over, this was going to go out. I thought it would be good to go out, the shitty version, because it would break The Beatles, it would break the myth. That's us with no trousers on and no glossy paint over the cover and no sort of hype. 'This is what we're like with our trousers off. So would you please end the game now?' But that didn't happen, and we ended up doing Abbey Road quickly and putting out something to preserve the myth. -john lennon
"It Don't Come Easy,"
from the first edition of Ringo Starr and his All-Starr band. Rick Danko and Levon Helm are from the Band; Clarence Clemmons is from Bruce Springsteen's band. Billy Preston you know!
Recording sessions for The Beatles
had proven to the group that they had entered a tense and difficult period. As their natural motivating force, Paul could think of only one solution: to have them "get back" to what had united them best before inconceivable fame and fortune had clouded the issue — live performances. The plan which garnered the most approval, even if it was sanctioned only grudgingly in some quarters, was for the Beatles either to broadcast live or video-tape an eight-song/one-hour television show in front of an audience — perhaps along the lines of the September 1968 'Hey Jude' promotional video shoot which everyone had enjoyed so much. Ideas were tossed around . . . But the vital unanimity which would have propelled the plan into reality could not be achieved, for despite the pitching in of big ideas, none of the other Beatles was wholly enthusiastic about Paul's scheme.
From the movie Let It Be
here are the Beatles and Preston jamming on some old songs from the early days of Rock and Roll and R&B: "Rip It Up," Shake, Rattle and Roll," "Kansas City," "Miss Ann," and "Lawdy Miss Clawdy."
The Grey Album
is a mashup album by Danger Mouse, released in 2004. It uses an a cappella version of rapper Jay-Z's The Black Album and couples it with instrumentals created from a multitude of unauthorized samples from The Beatles' LP The Beatles, more commonly known as The White Album. The Grey Album gained notoriety due to the response by EMI in attempting to halt its distribution despite Jay-Z's, Paul McCartney's, and Ringo Starr's approval of the project. Danger Mouse released The Grey Album in limited quantities to a few internet outlets. Due to the amount of attention the mashup received, EMI, copyright holder of The Beatles, ordered Danger Mouse and retailers carrying the album to cease distribution. Because of the overwhelming popularity of Danger Mouse's work this did not happen. Danger Mouse never asked permission to use The Beatles' material, and intended to produce a limited production run of 3,000 copies. Jay-Z's material, on the other hand, was commercially released in a cappella form. Although that work was copyrighted, it was released for the implicit purpose of encouraging mashups and remixes.
Apple Corps Ltd (informally known as Apple) i
is a multi-armed multimedia corporation founded in London in January 1968 by the members of the Beatles to replace their earlier company (Beatles Ltd) and to form a conglomerate. Its name (pronounced "apple core") is a pun. Its chief division is Apple Records, which was launched in the same year. Other divisions included Apple Electronics, Apple Films, Apple Publishing and Apple Retail . . .
Magical Mystery Tour
is a record by the English rock group the Beatles that was released as a double EP in the United Kingdom and an LP in the United States. Produced by George Martin, both versions include the six-song soundtrack to the 1967 film of the same name. The EP was issued in the UK on 8 December 1967 on the Parlophone label, while the US release took place on 27 November, after Capitol Records had compiled an eleven-track LP through the addition of songs from the band's 1967 singles.
"The End"
is notable for featuring Starr's only drum solo in the Beatles' catalogue (the drums are mixed across two tracks in "true stereo" — in a similar way to the studio single version of Get Back). Normally, even though mixes were in stereo, the drums were mixed in mono, locked together with other instruments and often panned hard left or right in the stereo picture. Fifty-four seconds into the song are 18 bars of guitar solo: the first two bars are played by McCartney, the second two by Harrison, and the third two by Lennon, with the sequence repeating.[20] Each has a distinctive style which McCartney felt reflected their personalities: McCartney's playing is in a somewhat rigid staccato style; Harrison's is melodic with pronounced string bends and Lennon's is rhythmic, stinging and had the heaviest distortion. Immediately after Lennon's third solo, the piano chords of the final part of the song begin. The song ends with the memorable final line, "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make".
"Homer's Barbershop Quartet"
is the first episode of The Simpsons' fifth season [1993]. The episode was written by Jeff Martin and directed by Mark Kirkland. It features The Be Sharps, a barbershop quartet founded by Homer Simpson. The band's story roughly parallels that of The Beatles. George Harrison and David Crosby guest star as themselves, and The Dapper Dans provide the singing voices of The Be Sharps.
The boutique was managed by John Lennon's schoolfriend Pete Shotton, along with Pattie Harrison's sister Jenny.
it was, however, a commercial failure and closed within eight months. Shoplifting was the main problem, with customers and staff alike proving unwilling to pay for The Fool's designs. The boutique lost £200,000 with a large proportion of the stock stolen by both customers and staff. The Beatles ended up giving away the shop's remaining stock when the Apple Boutique closed on 31 July 1968.
In 2003, Paul McCartney got his wish and had Apple records issue Let It Be . .
ked, which presented the album remixed yet again, without Spector's production. Let's compare Spector's "The Long And Winding Road" with the "naked" version:
It was like inviting a guest to a dysfunctional family's dinner:
lennon and McCartney were on best behavior. They had to take Harrison's song seriously. The result, of course, was a great recording of one of Harrison's best and most popular songs.
Although the group was supposed to be trying out and perfecting their new songs,
many of which would be performed in the live concert meant to follow, in fact the Beatles were undisciplined and would start jamming on old and new favorites (many composed by others) at the drop of a hat. Later, the movie would be re-titled Let It Be. Over the course of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions, the Beatles played at least a fragment of no fewer than 403 songs (not counting untitled jams)!
In 2015, Starr auctioned
much of his memorabilia, with the proceeds going to charity
McCartney and his band playing in "Being for the Benefit of Mister Kite"
on The Colbert Report, 12 June 2013. Notice how they use the synthesizer to recreate the random organ sounds.
This clip from the 1968 film Hot Millions
provides one of the few filmed shots from inside of the Apple Boutique. Note the copies of The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour EP on the counter.
The piece begins with a slow piano theme in the key of B minor and a male voice repeating the words "number nine",
quickly panning across the stereo channels. The unidentified voice was found on an EMI examination tape in the studio archives.[10] Lennon recalled: "I just liked the way he said 'number nine' so I made a loop ... it was like a joke, bringing number nine in it all the time ..."[4] Both the piano theme and the "number nine" loop recur many times during the piece, serving as a motif. Much of the track consists of tape loops that are faded in and out, several of which are sampled from performances of classical music.
"Revolution 9
s a recorded composition that appeared on the Beatles' 1968 self-titled LP release (popularly known as The White Album). The sound collage, credited to Lennon-McCartney, was created primarily by John Lennon with assistance from George Harrison and Yoko Ono. Lennon said he was trying to paint a picture of a revolution using sound. The composition was influenced by the avant-garde style of Ono as well as the musique concrète works of composers such as Edgard Varese and Karlheinz Stockhausen. The recording began as an extended ending to the album version of "Revolution." Lennon then combined the unused coda with numerous overdubbed vocals, speech, sound effects, and short tape loops of speech and musical performances, some of which were reversed. These were further manipulated with echo, distortion, stereo panning, and fading.
LADY MADONNA
song uncontroversially in praise of motherhood, was inspired by a magazine picture of an African woman [error: it's a Vietnamese woman] suckling her baby over the caption 'Mountain Madonna'.
Apple Records and the remaining Beatles never fully embraced digital distribution of music
such as iTunes) until 2009 when they issued newly digitally remastered mono and stereo versions of all of their albums with the original Parlophone track listings.
The video of "Revolution"
that the Beatles released featured the previously recorded instrumental backup of the single, but with live vocals that expressed the same ambivalent "out . . . in" as the album version.
The Beatles assembled in the studio in February 1968 to record their next single, "Lady Madonna."
the B side was "The Inner Light," which Harrison had recorded in India for a movie soundtrack on his own the previous month.
After the complex studio creations of 1966-1967 (the singles "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever," the albums Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour),
the Beatles created an album with a back-to-basics approach to the music and less studio overdubbing. Even the album cover artwork was simplified.
In 1988,
the Beatles were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
In February 1968,
the Beatles, wives and others flew to the Maharishi's retreat in Rishikesh, India. There, they meditated and wrote many songs.
Apple Music,
the company set up by The Beatles to handle the musical side of their business interests, released an advertisement on this day [19 April 1968] requesting tapes from aspiring musicians. The advertisements were carried in the national music press, including the New Musical Express and Melody Maker. The response was phenomenal, with only a tiny number of recordings actually listened to by Apple employees. A picture of Alistair Taylor, Apple's general manager, was positioned underneath the words "This man has talent... Although the response was overwhelming, not a single contract was signed as a result of The Beatles' talent trawl.
Many attempts were made to get the song into shape; here are two versions.
the first is a fairly simple version (unissued until 1996) that focuses on Lennon's acoustic guitar and his voice, without the backup singers! Note the shimmering "phasing" effect on the guitar. The second version is the one revised about two years later by Phil Spector and released on the Beatles album Let It Be. He slowed the recording down, thereby changing the key from D to D-flat.
When they resumed recording in September,
the first song they worked on was Lennon's "I Am The Walrus," for Magical Mystery Tour.
"George Harrison's wife Pattie had become interested in Eastern philosophy and religion following a holiday in Bombay towards the end of 1966.
the following year a friend invited her to a lecture on Transcendental Meditation at London's Caxton Hall. When Pattie heard that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was giving a series of talks at the London Hilton, she persuaded George to come along. On 24 August 1967 the couple, plus John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Jane Asher were in front row seats, listening to the Maharishi speak. After the event The Beatles were granted a 90-minute private audience with Maharishi. He impressed them with his philosophy; the next day they traveled to Bangor, north Wales, to attend a Transcendental Meditation seminar."
He [McCartney] even recorded his own drumming for "Back In The USSR,"
the last straw that kept Ringo out of the studio until he was begged to return to film a promo after twelve days. McCartney's callous attitude lingers 18 years later: "I'm sure it pissed Ringo off when he couldn't quite get the drums to back in the USSR and I sat in. It's very weird to know that you can do a thing someone else is having trouble with."
Although they remained unable to agree on a venue,
the man appointed as producer of the TV show, Denis 0' Dell, suggested that they at least begin rehearsing, and do so at Twickenham Film Studios up to 3 February. . . 0' Dell suggested too that the rehearsals themselves be filmed on 16mm, for perhaps a half-hour "Beatles At Work" TV documentary, which would either accompany the concert performance or be shown a few days before or after. —Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Chronicle, p 306
Styled after Fats Domino,
the music's immediate source was Johnny Parker's boogiewoogie piano line on Humphrey Lyttleton's 'Bad Penny Blues', produced by George Martin in 1956.
In preparation for the Anthology CDs and DVDs,
the three remaining Beatles (sometimes called "the Threetles") considered recording some new music for the new issues. They rejected the idea finally in favor of taking tapes of John Lennon singing then-unissued songs ("Free As A Bird" and "Real Love") and producing them into full four-member Beatles tracks.
Two songs had what I would call self-referential concepts.
their titles spring from phrases in the songs that would normally be incidental, but the phrases turn out to represent the song itself. McCartney wrote both of the songs and at best they are charming in their simplicity; however, their lasting value is debatable!
The precise date is unknown, but towards the end of May 1968 The Beatles met at Kinfauns, George Harrison's bungalow in Esher, Surrey.
there they recorded demo versions of a number of songs written in India, 19 of which later appeared on the White Album. The 27 songs believed to have been taped at Kinfauns were recorded on Harrison's Ampex four-track reel-to-reel tape recorder. They were mostly grouped together by the composer of each song, although John Lennon's songs were more scattered across the day.
As the Beatles got to around day 16 of their Get Back/Let It Be sessions
they were well aware that they had to bring the project to a close because Ringo was going to have to begin filming The Magic Christian in early February. This caused them to focus more closely on the songs most likely to be on any forthcoming album and as-yet-undecided live performance. By day 18, they had decided to perform the next day on the roof of the Apple building, and have it filmed, creating a conclusion to the Let It Be movie.
February 2014 re-creation of the 1964 Ed Sullivan marquee,
upon the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance in the U.S., on the Ed Sullivan Show
Producer/engineer Glyn Johns
was asked to listen to the hundreds of hours of Twickenham/Apple studio recordings and compile an album to be released in conjunction with the movie. The Beatles were not satisfied with the "rough cut," but no one was enthused with the prospect of combing through the tapes on their own, so the album project languished. As you know from "Across The Universe," John Lennon eventually gave some of the tapes to producer Phil Spector who added to and remixed them. The end result was not like the "back to basics" nature of the Twickenham/Apple sessions or the rooftop concert.
George Martin
was forced to call EMI and request the loan of two four-track consoles to connect to Apple's eight-track recorder. The failure of The Beatles to listen to his objections led Martin to distance himself from the Get Back project, and much of the production work was handed to engineer Glyn Johns. After The Beatles, Mardas mostly sank back into obscurity. It later transpired that his primary electronic experience had been gained as a television repair man in Greece.
the Concert for George
was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 29 November 2002 as a memorial to George Harrison on the first anniversary of his death. The event was organised by Harrison's widow, Olivia, and son, Dhani, and arranged under the musical direction of Eric Clapton and Jeff Lynne. The profits from the event went to the Material World Charitable Foundation, an organisation set up by Harrison.
John Lennon's "Julia"
was inspired both by Lennon's memories of his mother and reflections on his then-lover Yoko Ono: "The song was actually a combination of an imagery of Yoko and my mother blended into one." Lennon, on guitar, uses the fingerpicking technique that he learned in India from singer-songwriter Donovan.
The immediate inspiration for the REVOLUTION sequence ([127], [132]) w
was the May '68 student uprising in Paris, which reached its crescendo with de Gaulle's dissolution of the French National Assembly the very evening that REVOLUTION 1 was being laid down in London.
Ringo Starr
was the first of the four Beatles to try to quit the band.
I wrote While My Guitar Gently Weeps at my mother's house in Warrington.
was thinking about the Chinese I Ching, the Book of Changes... The Eastern concept is that whatever happens is all meant to be, and that there's no such thing as coincidence - every little item that's going down has a purpose. While My Guitar Gently Weeps was a simple study based on that theory. I decided to write a song based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book - as it would be a relative to that moment, at that time. I picked up a book at random, opened it, saw 'gently weeps', then laid the book down again and started the song.
The design company known as The Fool, who were known by The Beatles,
were given £100,000 to design and stock the boutique with their garments and accessories, and to decorate the building. One of The Fool's designers, Barry Finch, employed several dozen art students to paint a psychedelic mural across the building's front between 10 and 12 November 1967. Westminster Council had refused them permission but The Fool decided to press on regardless. Within two weeks of the boutique opening, however, complaints from local traders resulted in the council issuing Apple with an order to repaint the building in its original colour. It was perhaps the first setback in Apple's troubled history.
Harrison brought Preston back into the studio, w
where his enthusiasm and easy-going personality helped ease the tensions. John Lennon was in favour of making Preston a full member of the band; Paul McCartney disagreed, saying there was little point as the band was close to splitting. Nevertheless, he worked with The Beatles from 22-31 January 1969, playing Fender Rhodes electric piano and a Lowrey DSO Heritage organ.
Lennon received a letter from a pupil at Quarry Bank High School,
which he had attended. The writer mentioned that the English master was making his class analyse Beatles' lyrics (Lennon wrote an answer, dated 1 September 1967, which was auctioned by Christie's of London in 1992). Lennon, amused that a teacher was putting so much effort into understanding the Beatles' lyrics, wrote the most confusing lyrics he could. Lennon's friend and former fellow member of The Quarrymen, Peter Shotton, was visiting, and Lennon asked Shotton about a playground nursery rhyme they sang as children. Shotton remembered: "Yellow matter custard, green slop pie, All mixed together with a dead dog's eye, Slap it on a butty, ten foot thick, Then wash it all down with a cup of cold sick." Lennon borrowed a couple of words, added the three unfinished ideas and the result was "I Am the Walrus". The Beatles' official biographer Hunter Davies was present while the song was being written and wrote an account in his 1968 biography of the Beatles. Lennon remarked to Shotton, "Let the fers work that one out."
In 1997, [George] Harrison was diagnosed with throat cancer and treated with radiotherapy,
which was thought at the time to be successful.[143] He publicly blamed years of smoking for the illness. In May 2001 it was revealed that he had undergone an operation to remove a cancerous growth from one of his lungs, and in July, it was reported that he was being treated for a brain tumour at a clinic in Switzerland. [. . .] In November 2001, he began radiotherapy at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City for lung cancer that had spread to his brain. On 12 November, the three living former Beatles met for the last time at Harrison's hotel in New York for lunch. Harrison died at a friend's home in Los Angeles on 29 November 2001, aged 58, from metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. He was cremated at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and his ashes were scattered in the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers near Varanasi, India, by his close family in a private ceremony according to Hindu tradition.
He concludes that the peak of the Beatles' experimental tendencies came
with the album Sgt. Pepper and declined after that:
Epstein's death
would affect the Beatles greatly, because although Epstein had become wealthy from favorable deals signed when the Beatles were young and inexperienced, Epstein was their advocate and ally in the business world. Without his steadying hand, the group would make some poor business deals and deteriorate into infighting.
After the Beatles' breakup, the individuals embarked upon various musical pursuits, for example:
—Starr formed various editions of his "All-Starr" bands, recorded solo albums and still tours to this day. —Lennon and Ono formed the Plastic Ono Band and he recorded solo albums. He seldom toured. —Harrison co-organized the Concert For Bangladesh (often called the first modern all-star rock benefit concert), recorded solo albums and was co-leader of the Traveling Wilburys. He seldom toured. —McCartney formed the group Wings with his wife Linda, recorded solo albums and still often tours (more often than the other former Beatles). He also recorded avant-garde music anonymously with "youth" as the Fireman.